Sneak Peek at MOLI.com
MOLI.com was launched on January 28 at the DEMO 08 conference. In the press release Mainstream Holdings, Inc. Expands Its Social Networking Site MOLI.com With New Funding: $29.6 Million From Private Investors, MOLI is described as
a next-generation social networking site where members can manage multiple profiles in one account. Members can separate their social, business and family relationships and keep control over their privacy. Targeted at both enterprising individuals above the age of 18 and small business owners, MOLI provides an easy to use, content-rich, multimedia interactive platform ideal for both community collaboration and e-commerce. MOLI sites are currently located in the U.S. (www.moli.com), the U.K. (www.uk.moli.com) and Ireland (www.ie.moli.com). 1
Signing Up
So I visited their website and took their video tour. I was pretty excited to sign-up. But being from Canada, I couldn’t sign-up for a business/organization account using the moli.com website. On the moli.com website, which I found out is the US version of the site, you have to put in a zip code not a postal code to sign up. I later tried to create a business account on the UK website (www.uk.moli.com) and it worked even though they identified my postal code as being from Canada. Anyway, that being said, my exploration of MOLI took place using an individual account at moli.com.
What It’s Not
The people at MOLI are proud to announce that, unlike “other sites”, they give you the option to keep your social, business and family relationships separate from one another with only one account. So for some reason, when I signed-up, I had the impression that all of my profiles would be completely separate. I thought, for example, that the people who had access to my social profile wouldn’t even know I had a business profile or a cheesy band profile (no, I’m not really in a band) unless I told them, and vice versa. Of course, the people at MOLI will probably tell me I can hide my profiles. But a hidden profile means only the people you invite to your community will know it exists. One may not necessarily want them to be hidden. I may want my cheesy band to be public and become popular but I may not want my co-workers to know I’m in that cheesy band until we make it big (seriously, I don’t have a band). So in other words, I thought I could have all of my profiles (public or private) in one account but that they wouldn’t appear to be linked to one another to other users. So, for the record, this is not the case.
What It Is
What you have is one screen name which is the same for all of your profiles. So let’s say your screen name is Molly. Under Molly, people will see you have a business profile, a social profile, a family profile and what seems to be a cheesy band profile. What you can do is decide who can access which profile. And if you are part of a secret club, you can keep your profile for this secret club hidden and only invite other people from that community to see it. This, I think, will accommodate most people who seek a little less transparency and simply don’t want their boss or their mom to have access to their social profile. It is also an improvement compared to what Facebook and MySpace currently offer in terms of separating work from social life.
In her article Oh Moli You Heartbreaker, You, Sabrina Dent states that MOLI couldn’t check her Gmail to tell her who she knows is already a member. Actually you can do this, but it may not be as simple as on Facebook and I kept worrying all of my contacts would be getting the invite, even if MOLI tried to reassure me this was not going to happen. I went to the “Invite Friends” page and imported contacts from my Hotmail account using the link in Option 3. My contacts came up and those that were already on MOLI were highlighted in blue. It didn’t seem like I could send them a friend request from that page because when I added them to my contacts to send them an invite, they didn’t show up. But at that point (when I chose to add them to my contacts), they received a friend request from me. I know because “them” was none other than myself. So I got a friend request from myself. A bit strange, no? I could not, however, upload my contacts from Thunderbird which you can do on Facebook.
Music, Small Businesses… And Spam?
Dent’s other comments were accurate. There is an emphasis on art and music, there are useful tools for small businesses (web stores and CoVibe Live analytics - I was a bit surprised to find out 100% of my visitors were men with an average age of 61)… and there is some spam. Indeed, other than getting a friend request from myself, I also got a friend request à la MySpace from DrTom (who looks like he may be 61) about 30 minutes after I signed up, asking me to “check out DrTom’s Portal at www.drtom.tv for information and products on nature and the environment”. The next day, I got a friend request from none other than Anne Murray. Do all new members from Canada get this request from Anne Murray? And who knew Anne Murray was so up-to-date regarding social network websites? Interestingly, I haven’t received any such requests on my UK account yet.
Let’s get back to Dent’s review of MOLI for a moment. Below her review, someone left a very positive comment regarding MOLI:
MOLI is awesome. Exactly what grown ups and business have been waiting for. No kids spamming. The only thing i got when i signed up was a few friend request which is a good thing. 2
It seems those few requests are part of the deal. Dent later found out this person, who posted using the name Hawk5721, was MOLI’s Director of Customer Service. Don’t you think this type of behaviour is worse than “kids spamming”?
More Negative Reviews
Dent is not the only who thinks you shouldn’t bother with MOLI. Michael Richardson of Witigonen describes it as “a really poor implementation of an idea that’s pretty useless in the first place 3” and is turned off by its design.
Positive Review
Some, however, are more impressed with MOLI than Dent and Richardson. Gigaom’s Carleen Hawn loves the tools for businesses and the possibility of having multiple profiles. The downsides she points out are that MOLI may be too focused on marketing and that the site’s design may be a bit too much 4.
Conclusion
MOLI does look hip (to those who aren’t into spare designs), has the advantage of separating work and social profiles and offers interesting tools for businesses but, like many other social network websites, it has some learning to do on building trust. The people at MOLI may do well with small businesses looking for more exposure (MOLI stands for “money and living” after all) but they will have to come up with additional innovations to convince Facebookers and MySpacers who use their favourite website as a “social utility” to make the switch. Especially since there is talk that MySpace will soon offer multiple profiles and that Facebook’s Friend Lists Privacy Controls may lead to something similar. And if the people don’t come, the businesses they are courting with webstores and stats will also opt to stick with Facebook and MySpace. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Articles about MOLI…
Oh Moli You Heartbreaker, You by Sabrina Dent
Ex-E*TRADE CEO Goes Social With MOLI, by Carleen Hawn
MOLI wins $30m to keep your public and private life separate by Mike Butcher
Don’t Bother With Moli by Michael Richardson
REFERENCES
- 1. Mainstream Holdings, Inc. Expands Its Social Networking Site MOLI.com With New Funding: $29.6 Million From Private Investors, PRNewswire, Jan 28 2008, Retrieved on Feb 1 2008.
- 2. Dent, Sabrina. Moli.com Not Only Lies, But Whores, SabrinaDent.com, Jan 29 2008, Retrieved on Feb 1 2008.
- 3. Richardson, Michael. Don’t Bother With Moli, Witigonen, Feb 1 2008, Retrived on Jan 2 2008.
- 4. Hawn, Carleen. Ex-E*TRADE CEO Goes Social With MOLI, Gigaom, Jan 28 2008, Retrived on Jan 1 2008.
